When Irish noes are smiling after referendum on European Union's Lisbon Treaty

By Christopher Booker

12:01AM BST 15 Jun 2008

That sensational referendum result from Ireland called the bluff on one of the most shameless confidence tricks in political history.

Seven years ago, Europe's leaders decided that, as the consummation of their great "project", they would draw up a Constitution for Europe. After extending its powers for nearly 50 years, often by subterfuge and deception, the European Union could emerge in its true light on the world stage, as an all-powerful, supranational government.

Under the Laeken Declaration of 2001, full of references to "democracy" and the need to bring "Europe closer to its people", they set up a convention which spent 18 months drafting the constitution, tightly controlled at every point by its president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

For 18 months more they fine-tuned its details until it was ready to be ratified, by compliant national parliaments or by the referendums which various governments had been reluctantly forced to concede.

Then came that shocking moment in 2005 when the constitution was thrown out by the voters of France and Holland. The EU's leaders were stunned, and bemused as to what to do next.

Then, last summer, they came up with a breathtakingly bold plan. They would rearrange the contents of the constitution in a way that made it virtually incomprehensible, omit the provocative references to a constitution, and railroad it through their parliaments without risking any more referendums - except for the only country, Ireland, whose constitution made one unavoidable.

At least most of the EU's leaders were honest enough to admit that the new treaty and the old constitution were the same. Only Gordon Brown, to justify breaking his election promise of a referendum, pretended that the two documents were somehow quite different. He was so determined to get the treaty through that he did not even allow Parliament to discuss it properly.

His own party and the Lib Dems (with one or two honourable exceptions) are now so wedded to the lie that last Wednesday they jostled together through a Lords lobby to vote down the last hope of the referendum that both had promised.

Then came that Irish referendum, the one detail that the EU's political class had not been able to stitch up. At the last minute, a tiny portion of the peoples of Europe had, once again, been able to speak up, in a way denied to all the rest. Again the leaders were stunned - but this time they were ready.

In coming days we shall see the degrading spectacle of them wheeling out their long-prepared formula for ignoring the Irish verdict, and imposing their constitution-by-any-other-name regardless. The European project will be revealed for what it has been all along: a mighty system of state power, run by the political class with lofty contempt for the people it rules.

But at least we shall be able to remember that vote by the people of Ireland, as a last glorious gesture of Europe's dying democracy, before it is blotted out by the subtlest and most audacious coup d'état in history.

The mad world of carbon trading

News from the global warming front becomes crazier by the week. As the latest data from the Met Office's Hadley Centre shows global temperatures falling this year to a level only slightly above what they were in 1979, the International Energy Agency presents the G8 governments with a report calling for the world to spend $45 trillion (£23 trillion) on halving its carbon emissions by 2050.

That is more than two thirds of the entire output of all the economies on the planet. Admittedly some of this unimaginable sum, it says, should be spent on nuclear power stations. But trillions more should go on 215 million solar panels, hundreds of thousands of wind turbines and, inevitably, on those "carbon trading" schemes beloved of Al Gore, rapidly becoming the most insane commercial racket ever seen.

It is not often that this column praises the BBC, but hats off to Mark Gregory, a World Service business correspondent, who recently reported (in the middle of the night) on how a UN scheme to save the planet is working in India.

Under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, a small chemical firm in rural Rajasthan received 3.8 million "carbon credits" to burn off greenhouse gases that are a by-product of those used in fridges. Over the next decade the company will be able to sell these for a staggering $500 million to firms in the developed world, so they can continue "polluting".

Yet, as the company cheerfully explained, it would have bought the incinerator used to burn off those gases anyway. In other words, the $500 million is a free gift, handed over to achieve precisely nothing. Hardly surprisingly, 3,000 more firms are queuing up to join a bonanza already worth $10 billion a year.

By comparison, Swift's Academy of Lagado - where they tried to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, to provide warmth in cold summers - seems a temple of reason.

Better late than never, Mr Davis

Whether or not David Davis has chosen the right way to make a stand, this column can hardly object. For 15 years I have been reporting on the erosion of our liberties by an overmighty state, whether in Brussels, in London or the town halls - one of the most alarming developments of our time.

I have only stayed clear of the arcane arguments about "42 days" or the EU' s threats to habeas corpus because they seem abstract compared with some of the horrific injustices which already take place under the law as it stands.

I have reported no more shocking story in recent years than that of Ian Thornhill, an ex-policeman arrested on the orders of HM Customs & Excise for being involved in a £60 million drug-smuggling racket.

Although he was innocent - the arrogant officials had made a colossal blunder - he and his brother were locked up as Class A prisoners, with terrorists and mass-murderers. For two years they were subjected to appalling physical ill-treatment. Court hearings degenerated into farce. Eventually, because HM Customs didn't have a shred of evidence to link them to the crime (for which someone else was imprisoned), they were set free.

Although they were wholly innocent, the state had kept them in prison not for 42 days but for more than 700. Yet, by a bizarre quirk of the law, though their lives and businesses had been destroyed, they were not entitled to a penny of compensation.

All this could happen even before Gordon Brown got his famous 42 days. Yet not a single MP showed any interest. So if Mr Davis's quixotic gesture can shed some light on just how serious things are becoming, it may not be wholly in vain.